#18: By plucking her petals, you do not gather the beauty of the flower. – Rabindranath Tagore

Across from me sat a genuine Frenchman, perhaps the one thousandth boulevardier who had accosted me in the street since I’d arrived in Paris the previous September. It was all about me, of course. It always is when you’re nineteen.

Jean-Michel was not overly talkative. I liked that right away. He wasn’t leaning over the table breathing into my face. He didn’t attempt to touch me. He wore a gray wool jacket, with a burgundy and navy striped scarf around his neck; something my grandfather would own. Sitting slightly sideways from the table, he crossed one slender, muscular leg over the other. An athletic, skinny build. Not too tall. Very French. If he turned out not to be French, I’d be surprised.

We introduced ourselves. I told him I was from Connecticut, which he’d never heard of. He told me he was from Normandy, which I had. Finest butter in the world. Once I’d tasted it, I was ruined for American butter for the rest of my life. Great cows are bred in France, the greatest in Normandy.

Wide pauses punctuated our questions and answers. Jean-Michel didn’t fill up airspace asking the kinds of irritating questions I was always getting back home: “What are your plans?” — the whole tedious “what are you going to do with your life?” line I was currently allergic to.

Jean Michel’s classically European approach to conversation worked like a charm on me. No wonder cafes were invented in Europe — they offered both time and space to talk — or to observe and not talk.

I’ve always loved space; space between musical notes, space between people on a crowded sidewalk, space and time to think about something that just happened.

Now something was happening and the man across from me was giving me time to digest it. Was this a pick-up technique he’d perfected? Or was he just naturally intuitive when it came to women?

Whichever it was, I was impressed. He wasn’t breathing down my neck, trying to get my number and address, or tossing out ridiculous, embarrassing compliments. I wasn’t particularly self-confident at that moment in life, so no amount of observations from a man on my pretty face, my blonde hair or my cute upturned nose would have made much impact on me. I was perfectly aware my face was too round, my hair prone to frizziness and my ridiculous perky nose at least two millimeters too short to have any gravitas — weight or seriousness —at all.

I hadn’t yet learned to listen to what a man might tell me. I was too busy fending them off.

After a relaxed quarter of an hour, we’d finished our coffee. I’d had time to absorb Jean-Michel’s smashed-in boxer’s nose, navy blue eyes and mild manner. While I studied his shoulders (broad, but not too broad), he scribbled something on a piece of paper. I knew what it was before he handed it to me.

He paid the bill, gave me the slip of paper and told me to call him sometime. There was no pressure at all. He may have asked for my number before giving me his and I may have declined, but I don’t remember. I just recall he did exactly what I wanted him to do. He let me know he was interested to see me again, but gave me space and time in which to respond. I could see already he knew his way around women or at least women like me.